Pacific Northwest Weather

[weather girl]

Well, if you're not a hot weather person like me the bad news is that it's 81 at one. The good news is that that's 5 degrees cooler than it was yesterday at this time. Still expect to hit 90, but we've got winds out of the west now, too.

Looks like the Pacific Ocean is starting to turn off the furnace like it always eventually does.

A certain weather guy says that we should enjoy this while it's around. It may be the last of the heat for the next 3-5 weeks.

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day fellow PNWesterners.

[R-Dub]

Currently 86 degrees at 6:15PM here at LK Goodwin. Thank goodness for a north wind off the lake to make things a little more pleasant

[W13]

Currently 89 F after a high of 92 F and a low of 56 F. A very nice day, this is what weather should be like from April-September in the Pacific Northwest - Around 85-90 F with nothing but Sunny Skies!

[TT-SEA]

Then we would have nothing but sage brush.

None of our lush vegetation could survive 6 months of upper 80's and no rain.

Southern California has rain in the winter and nothing but sun all summer. The landscape is dead brown all summer and there are very few native trees.

[andycottle]

Good evening folks! Certainly another WARM day today...especaily this afternoon as my temp got pretty darn toasty! Nice that it was sunny with lots of blue skies and just patches of cirrus clouds this afternoon, though a bit to warm for me. And I was outside at work pretty much all day too.

In terms of the latest models.... ETA(NAM) and GFS agree on giving us a bit of a cool down starting late saturday into sunday with maybe a few showers and possible T-Storms...though probably thoes will be few and far between. Looks like our cooler weather stays with us for the next couple weeks with some what of a weak zonal flow setting up this week, and then a 558DM trough of low pressure sliding down the B.C coast line by around June 9th. This will for sure keep our cool weather intact.

-- Andy

[TT-SEA]

As I thought... today was the warmest day out here in North Bend. I had a high of 94 degrees at my house.

However... driving home with the window open to gauge temperature it was interesting how much it varied.

I was driving home around 6 p.m.

I was coming from Redmond so I took West Lake Sammamish Parkway. When I walked to my car it felt hot. But driving all the way down along the lake it actually felt a little cool. Then I got on I-90 in Issaquah and it felt really hot again. Then coming by Fall City it was cool... then at Snoqualmie Parkway it was hot... and finally coming down into North Bend it felt really cool again.

The sun was just going behind the ridge and it was a very pleasant evening for a walk. It did not feel hot at all.

Thankfully this heat wave is fading now.

A welcome switch to onshore flow next week!!

[andycottle]

Hi all and good evening!

Whew..! What a very WARM to Hot day today! And very sunny too, though there were some patches of cirrus clouds late this afternoon into early this evening. My high today got up to a toasty 89 degrees with a mild low of 55. Currently at 10:16pm I have clear skies with a temp of 69 and humidity 51%.

Here`s some pics I took of the cirrus clouds that I saw today here in Woodinville. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ajc192004 ... .dir=/1e73

-- Andy

[TT-SEA]

Pretty sharp drop here in NB.

94 degrees for a high and we are sitting at 63 degrees just one hour after the sun has set.

Thats a drop of 31 degrees in a couple hours.

That is also a perfect example of why air conditioning is not really required here.

[andycottle]

67 and clear skies here at 10:58p.m. -- Andy

[TT-SEA]

As of 9 a.m... Sea-Tac is running 13 degrees behind yesterday at the same time.

That should translate into a high in the 70's rather than the upper 80's.

Tomorrow and Monday will be cooler than today.

Looks like a nice little system for Tuesday evening and then zonal flow. The GFS has trended farther north with subsequent systems and that should keep the weather fairly pleasant with some showers and plenty of sun later this upcoming week.

Sea-Tac did not reach 90 degrees during the heat wave.

[R-Dub]

A much more pleasant evening with a current temp of 65 degrees at 7:50PM. Today was perfect with a high temp of 79 degrees. The lake was and still is completely packed, both my neighbors and I had the BBQ's fired up this evening, it was awesome. Reminds me of a day in July, not May but I will take it

[andycottle]

Latest GFS tonight is showing at least another nice day or two, but with cooler temps and morning clouds. Then for the frist week of June or so....we get into a nearly zonal flow pattern along with a weak trough for the 1st and 6th. This looks to bring us plenty of showers and definally keeping the cooler weather over us. -- Andy

[snow_wizzard]

I was sure surprised that Covington did not get all that hot on Friday. We only hit 88. Covington is usually one of the warmer places in that kind of a situation. What a great cool down we had today...you could just feel how the air was totally different!

It continues to look like a very cool period is setting up for the beginning of June. It will be hard to escape temps dropping to 5 - 9 degrees below normal, especially as the very deep trough slated for the 7 - 10 day period comes in. I am astounded the NWS discussion is saying the pattern next week will be typical...do they mean typical for March? Even the 6 - 10 day outlook has us at a high chance of below normal temperatures. Once again, if June is to have a below normal temperature average it will require us to stay away from the big warm spell at the end. In April we had many below normal days, but that lousy warm period at the end of the month messed up the low monthly average. I shall be eagerly watching to see if we can pull out a below normal monthly average for June!

As for cold weather at the beginning of June...It is strongly supported by past history. Many of the years that had major warm spells in May, had a very cool period in the following days or weeks!

[TT-SEA]

The current pattern and the predicted pattern locally for the next week looks very much like late May and early June of 1973.

Check out the historical 500mb maps and then the latest ECMWF run. I think the GFS is too aggressive but has the basic pattern right for the next week. The ECMWF is similar but with slightly higher 500mb heights. I trust the ECMWF more right now.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be cool and wet... then we should get 3 days or so of very pleasant weather. The second week of June should be cooler and wetter again.

[TT-SEA]

Just for reference... late May of 1973 had some record heat as well.

And it followed an El Nino winter.

June of 1973 was wet and slightly cooler than average.

[snow_wizzard]

TT...I agree that 1973 is shaping up to be another pretty good analog. I have been on the fence about that year, but now it looks like a good match. 1983 is also shaping up to be a decent match, but still has some problems.

[TT-SEA]

Snow_Wizzard... here are two VERY interesting articles on PNW climate.

It will be fascinating to see how much the cold spell we both know is coming at the end of December is moderated from previous events. I think you might be shocked at how it has become so hard to get really cold and snowy. Even when it worked so well in the past.

For your reading pleasure...

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/226175_climate29.html?searchpagefrom=1&searchdiff=1

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/pacificnw/1217/cover.html

[TT-SEA]

Andy... what happened to the sunny, warm Memorial Day weekend??

Today was not nice at all and tomorrow looks to be the same.

A high of 62 degrees at Sea-Tac under an all-day overcast. We struggled to 61 degrees for a high in NB after getting up 94 degrees on Friday.

When we have a heat wave... we need to remember that a marine push under stable high pressure leads to solid clouds all day. The models have a terrible time with this situation. The upper air pattern would argue for sunshine and 70's.

If we did not have a heat wave... today would have been much nicer.

This situation is also VERY common in Southern California and results in blown forecasts of 20 degrees or more.

Yet it happens over and over again.

[andycottle]

Tim, the warmer weather that I thought for sure would happen...did not come togeather. It simply went down the drain.

Latest ETA/ NGM-MOS models both have high temps in the lower to mid 60`s for tomorrow. Also, tomorrow should be a carbon copy of today... with lots of marine clouds and little if any sun at all. Looks like a nice little 552DM trough comes through our area by about the 1st of June to spread a decent chance of showers. Then it`s continued cool with showers at times for the next week or so.

-- Andy

[R-Dub]

Marine air just broke up at around 7:00PM and currently 62 degrees. Huge difference from yesterday, only a few boats on the lake today
Could have been worst, could have been raining!